Fiendish Implications

Yesterday, our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night with the usual uuspects: Kully the Bard, Shade the Ranger, Dagmar the Cleric, Kairon the Sorcerer, Waylon the Thief, and Erekose the Fighter.

Still in the village of Lumberton, the party sets out for the Pine Sawmill to get to the bottom of the rampaging automatons. They figure during the day time that the mill will be mostly deserted as the Iron Woodsmen would be out lumberjacking. They taking the river to the mill is the safest route (considering what happened last time they were on the trail through the forest). They hope they will find the Snarts the wizard Gargam tells them are being imprisoned there and end this mess.

They go into the mill stealthly, with Waylon the Frogling taking point. Waylon spies one Woodsman at work on the second level. Before he consult with the others he also encounters a little blue man (a Snart he presumes) who pulls a megaphone from somewhere and alerts the Woodsman to his presence before running away.

The rest of the party runs to help, but the Woodsman has reinforcements as well, and the battle is joined. Thanks to some strategic spell work from the magic-users, Kully and Kairon, the most serious damage from the Woodsmen comes from the explosions when they are killed. Ultimately, they kill defeat the six in the mill, though Erekose takes heavy damage.

In the battle, Waylon shoots the Snart that caused this mess and he briefly plays dead, but reveals he wasn't injured at all. Dagmar talks to it before it leaves, and it reveals that the Snarts aren't responsible for the Woodsmen going berserk and nor are they being held captive. He hints someone with horns is responsible before he disappears.

A search of the workshop on the highest floor of the mill reveals tracks from some sort of small creature that isn't a Snart. On a hunch, Dagmar turns fiends--and an angry little devil becomes visible with a flurry of curses!

If You Go Down in the Woods Today

Yesterday, our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night...

ROLL CALL: Kully the Bard, Shade the Ranger, Dagmar the Cleric, Kairon the Sorcerer, Waylon the Thief, and Erekose the Fighter!

The riverside village of Lumberton has fallen on hard times. The owners of the local sawmill bought some automatons from a mysterious traveling salesman and now the things are running amok! Day and night, these Iron Woodsmen are clearing the forest and killing anyone that gets in their way.

Our heroes happen upon a desperate discussion between Mayor Bole Wood and his advisors, and succumb to the Mayor's desperate plea for aid (and promise of compensation). Eavesdropping on the conversation, the ranger hears mention of someone or something called "snarts" and is immediately suspicious they aren't getting the full story.

A talk with the alehouse matron, Burl, reveals that Snarts are in fact small, mischievous fey that the townspeople believe have cursed them and made the Iron Woodsmen go crazy. Armed with this knowledge they set out to find the hidden Snart village.

Just outside of town, they find a dilapidated manor inhabited by the wizard Gargam. Gargam is not the most pleasant of wizards or a great conversationalist, but they discover (a) that he hates Snarts, but wishes to use them for some undisclosed magical purpose, and (b) he says they have been captured by the Iron Woodsmen and taken to the mill.

The party heads toward the mill and comes upon an Iron Woodsmen work crew. A battle is joined. and our heroes discover that the Woodsmen are tough opponents--and they explode in steam and shrapnel if they are too heavily damaged. Destroying the 4 automata, but bloodied and battered themselves, the party retreats to town, where they confront the Mayor, who also believes the Snart curse levied due to their extensive clearing of the forest is the cause of their misfortune.

The party resolves to locate the Snarts and set this problem right.

Raiders of Estvyn's Tomb

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the fifth and final session of our adaptation of X2: Castle Amber.  After a sojourn in France, the party found themselves in Estvyn's tomb.  The way to his crypt was blocked at every turn by a guardian monster of some sort. They sneaked past a sleeping azure dragon on a treasure pile in the antechamber. They suffered some burns from the claws of fire crabs in a flaming hallway. They got bowled over by a rock creature (galeb duhr) in the next connecting room.

At this point, they decided to take a long rest, before preceding. A manticore greeted them in the next room. Having a prior disliking for his kind, thanks to their experience with Mortzengersturm, they attacked with such ferocity he was dead before he got an attack! To be fair, Shade the Ranger did try to get him to back down without a fight.

Next, they were asked to chose between a room full of water and a room full of mud. After fishing with the Waylon the frogling as bait revealed at least a couple of eel hounds lurking, they went with the mud room, where they slugged (and slogged) it out with a mud golem. Dissonant whisipers ultimately hurt his feelings--to death.

The final room held a barbed devil. Here, Astra's stellar radiant blasts and the Mace of Disruption they had gotten previously really came in handy.

Finally at Estvyn's crypt, they burned the tapestry and broke the curse. The Elf mage thanked his cousin Shade for coming to his rescue. He removed the lunacy curse from Kully and Astra, and unpetrified Dagmar. Finally, the part got a magic item each for their trouble. They were deposited back in the Land of Azurth in front of a now ancient and crumbling House Perilous.

The Inn Between Worlds

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the fifth session of our free adaptation of X2: Castle Amber. Last time, the party had opened the gate with the silver keys--and promptly been attacked by an amber lion statue come to life. Two shatter spells meant the end to that creatures, and a load of amber shards as loot.

The party passed through the gate and found themselves in a rather unusual French inn, Bonne Joissance. Unusually because the staff are all fae, including the all woman band. Each will show the party to a door to a different locale where they fight find on of the treasures they are looking for (the same door, but it opens to a different place depending on which band member opens it).

The harp player opens the door to the forest Sylaire and a half-ruined tower upon a tor. There they find Freydis, a faerie queen who sits a vigil waiting for her lover. She will exchange the Sword of Sylaire for the party subduing (but not killing) her lover, now a werewolf under the full moon. The werewolf and his pack attack the tower, but again the mages save the day with a barrage of scorching rays.

When the door is opened by flutist the party passes through a limpid pond and a lovelorn knight, Luc. He's being trying to find a feather to match the one he snatched (and then lost) from the cape of a swanmay as she fled their dalliance at dawn. He's certain he can find a substitute to present to her, but no mundane feather seems to match. He is willing to trade the Ring of Eibon for a feather from the fearsome jubjub that dwells in the nearby forest. Shade the Ranger tracks the bird, and (via speak with animals) she learns it is willing to part with two feathers for something shiny. The party offers up some amber from the statue and gives one feather to Luc, getting the ring in exchange.

The drummer ushers them the hall of Lord Huidemar. Huidemar is very pleased to see the party as their coming has been prophesied. He relates that he is widely known as a fool, but he will become a wise man when they give him the feather of the Simurgh bird. They give him the jubjub feather instead, but he doesn't seem to know the diffference. They get the Serpent Encircled Mirror in exchange.

The guitar player opens the door to the location of the potion of time travel--the dungeons of the debauched sorceress, the Lady d'Azederac. The party interrupts a ritual. Their coming exasperates her but is not unexpected. It has been prophesied that beings from another world would bring her an acorn of gold from Eden. The presentation of this relic would turn her from her iniquities and set her on the path of saintliness. The party presents her with one of their acorns (though not from Eden, of course) and get the potion in exchange.

Returning one last time to the inn, the party uses the items to summon the tomb of Estyvan.

A Gate, Silver Keys, and Tempting Fate

Michael Kaluta

Our Land of Azurth game continued last night with the fourth session of my adaptation of X2: Castle Amber. The dog-headed Claudas had told them they needed to go to the dungeon to find the gate where they could use the silver keys, but they didn't know where the dungeon was. Shade the Ranger was convinced she should at least try to make nice with her crazy family, the Sylaire, by going to see her grandmother. Claudas (who shared the same grandmother) said that the Dame Carmilla was in the card room across the hall playing at being fortune teller.

Carmilla didn't look like a grandmother, but she did recognize her wayward daughter in her grand-daughter. She offered to let Shade and her companion draw cards. Shade did (reluctantly) and received a chalice which allowed her to tell when someone was lying. The frogling thief Waylon pulled the Page of Coins and had all his coinage disappear! Kully had nothing occur on his draw. Carmilla disappeared and while they waited the night in a long rest, the others drew. Astra of the Shooting Star Folk pulled a death card--all the more horrifying because the player's first character (Dagmar) had already been petrified. Luckily, the death was just a hit point reduction, and she was able to be saved.

Next, they found a room full of dog-headed men playing cards.They tried to be somewhat helpful and point the way to the Black Room, but they got into an argument over the best way to go and the party was left confused. A mention of a secret door got them searching and they found the Red Room.

In the Red Room, and an armored man, Solus, who claimed to be a dwarf fallen from the sun. he told them the Black Room was right next door. They found it, but it took a bit of searching to find the trapdoor.

A Magic Square painted onto the floor of the room they came into caused them a lot of consternation, ultimately to know useful end, as two succumbed to the lunacy curse (though they didn't know it yet). Two received increases in their wisdom.

After that, it was a pitch battle in the vat room where artificial men were made, and oneiric black dust in the alchemical lab. Kully had a dream of falling and woke up dead (or at least 0 HP). Kairon had all his dreams come true of having the Wizard raise his station, only to have it fade away with the dust.

Avoiding more fights became their goal, as the party continued a room to room search for the gate. They ran away from a coin-encrusted slime worm and shut the door on a kennel of whimpering hell hounds.

At last, they found the room with the gate. As they turned the keys, the amber lion statue came to life...

A Weird Alien on the Planet of the Apes

"THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Ted Cassidy as Eezaya

Synopsis: Irving, Woodward, and La Cava set out to investigate the site of a fallen meteor and find an alien monster with the power to turn men to stone!

Commentary: The alien is this adventure first appeared in Perseus Against Monsters (Perseo l'invincibile) (1963)--which also goes by a bunch of other names. The creature bears something of a resemblance to the alien in an episode of Space:1999, "The Dragon's Domain," but I can't conclusively say they are the same one.

This creatures eye blast was sort of petrifying but turned bodies to hardened ash, sort of like this:

The PCs spent a lot of time trying to think of a creative way to defeat the monster, but it proved to be fairly susceptible to bullets, ultimately.

I used this theremin music to represent the monster's alien call. It's petrifying eye blast made a sound like the Martian heat ray sound effect from Pal's War of the Worlds. (You can hear it here. eventually).

Silver Keys in House Perilous

Our Land of Azurth game continued last night with the third session of my adaptation of X2: Castle Amber. We had ended on a cliffhanger with the chaplain in gold armor about to attack. He got in a couple of blows, but the party made short work of him and stole his loot.

They also found a chest containing a meteorite, which unfolded into Astra, one of the Shooting Star Folk. She was vague as to how she got here, but just as eager as the party to find a way out, so she joined them.

Astra by Jeff Call

Next was a room full of skeletons in cassocks, a four armed one had a silver key around its neck. The party took heavy damage, but prevailed. Searching for a place to rest, they found more gold and a cockatrice, but no one else got petrified. Our heroes left the chapel feeling they had either killed or allowed to be killed a person with information they needed to get out.

They passed through the garden again, wisely avoiding a field of poppies, and came to the other wing of the house. The bard, Kully, shook off an attempt at possession in a throne room full of skeletons. They chatted with a well-mannered ice salamander, but had nothing they would allow him to freeze to trade for more information.

Finally, they came upon the first generally helpful person they've met in the whole mansion: a mastiff-headed man named Claudas they encountered in the library. He showed Shade a scroll that revealed they needed several magic items to lift the curse and escape the house. These items are on Earth in a place called France. The players realize they have some of the Silver Keys they surmise open to the gates to France, but now they just have to find those gates.

Firefight on the Planet of the Apes

"FIGHT IN THE DESERT" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Strother Martin as the Mutant Priest


Synopsis: Irving, Woodward, and La Cava go all Wild Bunch on a group of mutants.

Commentary: After little action last adventure this one was a shootout. For the first time since we started this campaign, though, things got tense as the high Mutant Future hit points got whittled down. The fact that I house-ruled doubling the damage for firearms a few sessions ago also helped.

Though this came up last session and not this one, the mutants venerate "Mendes" as their divinely inspired leader and spokes man for the bomb. The priests seen in this session and the last are slightly more human looking than the Kreeg, but also more unhealthy appearing.

The PCs managed to acquire a couple of submachineguns (an M3 being the most coveted) and a dune buggy.

Blood & Stone in House Perilous

Our Land of Azurth game continued last night with the second session of my adaptation of X2: Castle Amber. When last we left the party, they had managed to open a chest they found in a fountain, but had been caught in the act by an Elf woman. She looked sort of like this, and she and her hound were riding on the back of a rather large crocodilian with a gold chain and leash:

Art by  Vladislav Erko

She gave her name as Dismé and demanded the party put back the chest. After some hemming and hawing they did--except for a silver key, which Waylon the thief pocketed. She told them the Sylaire family was cursed and no one could leave the manor. Only perhaps, someone named Ystyvan could help them. She suggested they try the chapel, then rode off.

Next, our heroes encounter bronze-furred squirrels who could turn acorns (or anything they thought of as food) to gold with a bite. Shade the Ranger spoke with animals while Erekose and Waylon gathered gold acorns. All this activity brought the forest's ruler and his wild hunt from beneath a hill:

The party was afraid they were outmatched by this guy and his cat-and-dog-men riders. They tried diplomancy, but Herne (as he called himself) only agreed not to attack his "cousin" Shade. The party concentrated their fire on him and took all their foes out surprisingly swiftly.

The entered the chapel and found it lined with sinner statues in mockery of saints and the  personifications of sins leering from the altar:

They hoped one of the statues might be Ystyvan. Instead one winked and kissed Shade and her intelligence went up. After almost visiting all the statues, one reached out and touched Dagmar and turned her to stone!

The others had no way immediately to save her. They heard a voice calling from under the stones. Prying it open, they found a pit-like grave and released a little girl named Mabdalene:

She wanted to find her brother for revenge. Shade panicked and shot her and the party fought with her a bit, before she scuttled past them and escaped.

Looking desperately for a place of safety to rest, the group found monk cells inhabited by zombies. They cleared three rooms, but the undead fortitude of one zombie allowed him to comically old on to unlife after being reduced to zero on multiple attacks.

After a long rest they explored the rest of the chapel, finding the dead body of a Sylaire family member (presumably Mabdalene's brother) in a library, and a man in golden armor praying in another. After an exchange of pleasantries, he attacked.

Cautious Exploration on the Planet of the Apes

"DANGER AT THE PASS" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Aurelius
Alfonso Arau as Lope


Synopsis: Irving, Woodward, and La Cava go off on a scouting mission and (thanks to random encounter rolls) find evidence that there is a dangerous predator on the loose.

Commentary: A low action session, but a lot of exploration. Left without a clear goal, the group explored westward into San Augustin Pass. They see evidence of some sort of burrowing monster. Theories as to its nature include land shark, sandworm, and (based on a sighting) some sort of bear thing.

In the end, they see mutants approaching (likely for revenge) who are led by a guy who looks like this:

Into House Perilous

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night with the first session in an adaptation of X2: Castle Amber. While the PCs had been getting used to their being a new mayor in town and tying up loose ends from previous adventures, the Elf Ranger Shade had received a visit from her mother, Oona whom she hadn't seen in one time. Oona told her it was time for her to visit her family in their manse and fulfill her familial obligation to house Sylaire (obligations her mother had notably fled herself all those years ago) and perhaps set right what has gone wrong.

Art by Tony DiTerlizzi

Shade is reluctant to reveal all of this to her companions but ultimately, she does. They accompany her to the Aldwode on a night of the new moon to find the phantom House Perilous, the home of the Sylaire clan. To save her from the unwanted marriage they are sure is coming, they do a hasty marriage of dubious legality to the bard Kully. The party finds an iridescent salamander in a clearing and the creature tells them to walk widdershins around the area, then sleep the night with no light sources. They do as the the creature bids them, and they wake up in the foyer of the house.

art by Dana Guerrieri

In the salon, the rakish Jereth and his waxen pugilist offer them a wager. Against Shade's warning, Erkose takes him up on it, and knocks the creature out in under 2 rounds, winning them 500 gold. Jereth suggests to Shade that the grand matron, Carmilla, might wish to see her and "do a reading of the cards."

art by George Barr

In the study they encountered strange cat men who wanted only to sleep and warned the party off with hisses and curved daggers. In the banquet hall, the party declines to eat with the elegant, fancy-dressed phantom dinners. Waylon and Erekose did feed some roast beef to the cat men, to no visible effect.

In the Mirror Hall, half the party is blinded for an hour. They encountered a leprous looking servant (a thoul) who leaves them be when Shade invokes her mother's name. They avoided the other rooms in that wing and went into the indoor forest. Again, they mostly stayed clear of trouble, keeping to the path.

Erekose's greed was enticed by a chest ensconced beneath the gargoyles in the fountain, and he and Waylon contrived to get the chest without entering the water. The chest scraping across the bottom, however, roused the ameba lurking there, and it attacked. The party lit it up with blasty cantrips and drove it back. As the party peered at the riches in the chest, a feminine voice from behind them asked just what they were doing.

Sneak Attack on the Planet of the Apes

"THE MUTANT SHRINE" 

Player Characters:
Justin Davis as Conrad "Rip" Ripper
Billy Longino as Olsen Potter Graves
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
The memory of Jarrett Crader as Aurelius
Alfonso Arau as Lope
Wardude
Broh
assorted Kreeg

Synopsis: The astronauts launch a raid against a Kreeg religious shrine in a White Sands Missile Range museum and acquire a new weapon.

Commentary: Google maps makes getting a map of a real world location a whole lot easier than in the pre-internet days--if only they had a hexgrid overlay! The White Sands missile Range Museum is, of course, a real place. Through the magic of suspension of disbelief, it was buried by sand rather than eroded by the millennia and the mutants were able to dig it up.

LaCava (aided by Woodward) was able to steal another Kreeg vehicle: a walker that looked like a more Mad Max version of this:

With it's machine gun the gang turned the Kreeg church meeting into a lower budget version of the climatic gun battle in the Wild Bunch.

Escape from the Den of the Dragonettes

Last time in our Land of Azurth 5e campaign, the group was stranded on a weird mesa after having been attacked by wooden gargoyle puppets. After noticing the gargoyle corpses were still held a bit off the ground by the strings, the party thought they might use those to climb down, but the strings were too thin. However, they serendipitously discover that the gargoyle wings still have some lift to them; enough that they are able to ride gargoyle corpses to the ground like gliders.

Using the stage deocration-like trees and bushes they cut down as camoflage, the party tried to make their way around another mesa, skirting the wooden gargoyle town and getting to the mountain on the opposite side they believe might hold a way out. When they're spotted, they just make a break for it, and it's a spell-slinging, bow-firing chase to mountain. Luckily, there is a cave entrance.

Once inside (where the gargoyle's can't go because of their strings), our heroes follow the twisting trail up inside the mountain until they reach a larger cave. There's a whispering in the darkness, and the party is greeted by:

The Dragomen: Humans dressed in bad dragon costumes who serve someone called "the Dragonettes" and believe by sacrifice they will be reborn as those creatures and after many cycles, dragons. The Dragonettes live in the next cave over and come for a sacrifice every week.

Not wanting to linger long among these idiots, the party moves on to the next cave. There they are stopped by diminutive reptilian creatures with spears:

These are the Dragonettes. They can barely disguise their snickering at how they've gulled the Dragomen, whom (it is fairly obvious) they are using as a food source. They refuse to let the party pass, but Kully puts them to sleep. Investigating the adjacent caves uncovers a great hall (which the party avoids), a garbage pit filled with human bones, and a kitchen. There Erekose kills a fleeing Dragonette, so the party begins to move with more urgency.

They uncover a shrine where a winged Dragonette priest and his acolytes are raising a sacrificial platform (pilled with human parts and a Dragonette corpse) up into an aperture in the ceiling to the "Mother Dragon."

Several party members want to kill the priests and take the platform to the aperture, but Shade convinces them to parlay. When the priest hears they want to willing take the platform up, he's more than happy to let them go meet the Mother. He's sure such a sacrifice will prime him for dragon evolution for sure!

The party ascends into darkness. Those with dark vision see a cave littered with bones and overfilled with a very old, sleeping dragon. Stealthy investigation reveals a manhole-size opening in the ceiling that goes up through rock to reveal the night sky. There are no other exits.

With few options, the party sends the frogling Waylon climbing up to investigate. He finds himself on a cold and wind-swept mountain peak. Then, he hears the sound of bells! He lights his lantern and to his wondering eyes appears a flying sleigh pulled by deer!

Art by GENZOMAN

Father Yule knows him by name, and acquiesces to Waylon's request for rope. His friends quickly scramble up out of the dragon's den, and since Father Yule is on his way to the Land of Azurth, he gives them a ride.

He deposits the party in Rivertown, with a gift each.

This entire series of adventures was liberally adapted from Frank L. Baum's Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz.

Bandits on the Planet of the Apes

"WHITE SANDS" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Ted Cassidy as Eezaya
Alfonso Arau as Lope
Wardude
Broh
Dan-Nee
Stev
Bonobo Banditos

Synopsis: After repelling the Kreeg attack, the astronauts push the human tribes to get better organized. When theyy set out on their own raid against the mutant's hideout, they have to contend with an unexpected foe.

Commentary: This adventure featured the first appearance of a hereto unknown intelligent ape species: bonobos. The group captures a wounded bandito, Lope, and gently interrogate him. They get further confirmation that ape society is not homogeneous.

The astronauts also picked up a ground of Tehi warriors as henchmen associates. These guys look like the "White Feather Warriors" (the human ones) from 2nd Edition Gamma World module "The Cleansing War of Garik Blackhand":

The name "Wardude" is an homage to a hireling in Chris Kutalik's Hill Cantons campaign.

The group also found out that the warwheel apparently came from a Kreeg installation in White Sands, though their main base is somewhere farther to the West, and are also "deadly gunmen" in that direction.

The Land of the Wooden Gargoyles

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night with the party entering the conical mountain at the edge of the Vale of Vo. A sign warned them that this way led to the Land of the Gargoyles and urged caution, but they began climbing the mountain's great internal stairway anyway.

After a days travel (and a rest) they came to a platform and a balcony overlooking a burning, oilly sea. The balcony was the nesting site of giant vultures of a very disagreeable type:

Trying to sneak past the nest, the party was forced to kill one vulture before they could continue on their way. Next, they were greeted by an affable disembodied head with long hair and a beard. Not conmpletely disembodied, it turned out. The man's body was just stuck (mostly) inside a portable hole. The man gave his name as "7739" (but after finding where he carved it in the ground, the party suspected in was actually "Gell"). He claimed to be an magical inventor from the Land of Azurth. He had made his living putting holes in fancy cheeses and the like, until a mathematical error in the construction of a hole led to catastrophe. He fell into this underworld and became hopelessly stuck in a tangle of holes. He didn't seem much bothered by this. He had devoted his time to the creation of "Huzzahs" for political rallies and flutters for flags and the like. The party was certain he was a lunatic, but Waylon nevertheless purchased a box of three huzzahs for the price of a piece of string.

Continuing their journey, the group came to the end of the stairway and a strange mesa. It looked like a sawdust strewn stage set: the flowers and trees were wooden cutouts, so seemed to be the clouds overhead. The marionette gargoyles that came flying towards them on creaking, hinged wings were more fully formed--and belligerent. After a pitch battle, the party dispatched eleven of them.

There seemed to be no way off the mesa but flying, and a wooden, gargoyle city seemed to lie between them and the next mountain. The party made camp in what they hoped was a secluded spot to heal their wounds and formulate a plan of action.

Bad Hombres on the Planet of the Apes

"THE WAR WHEEL" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Jarrett Crader as Aurelius
Billy Longino as Olsen Potter Graves
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Ted Cassidy as Eezaya
Mutant driver
Various tribesfolk

Synopsis: The Kreeg War Wheel attacks the conclave on the Rio Grande, but the astronauts and their ape friend strike back.

Commentary:
As heavily armored as a tank, the weapons of the astronauts are pretty much useless. Graves and Aurelius hatch a plan to tip the machine over with the grenades they acquired a few sessions back. From the back of a horse-sized mutant dog this doesn't go exactly smoothly, but is nonetheless sucessful enough in damaging the War Wheel to make it retreat.

Graves continues his alcohol-fueled heroism and tries to blow torch his way into one of the gun turrets. After evicting one of the mutants, he manages to damage the controls and crash the thing.

A mutant like the one Graves killed

Eezaya finally seemes impressed with the Men from the Sky and willing to listen to their suggestions.

Aurelius acquires a pistol (the astronauts hadn't been letting him have one before) and a helmet like this:

New Alliances on the Planet of the Apes

"THE CONCLAVE" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Jarrett Crader as Aurelius
Billy Longino as Olsen Potter Graves
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Ted Cassidy as Eezaya
Robert Sutton  as Kreeg Dog Rider
Frank Sorello as Kor-Tez
Jem of the Rey-Gonites
Various tribesfolk

Synopsis: While the astronauts and Aurelius are guests at a meeting of human tribes, the mutants make a surprise attack.

Commentary:
The PCs met Eezaya again (last seen back in Episode 2) and take part in a conclave of human tribes (both Tehi from the former Texas side of the Rio Grande and at least some Mehi from the Mexican side). The astronauts find the humans woefully unprepared in their estimation to take on a gorilla fort, which is their plan.

A mutant attack forestalls any consideration of deserting the humans for the moment.  The mutant raiders ride giant mastiffs like Darkseid's dog cavalry in The New Gods. I used the stats for the podog-rdiing Scarlet Knights from the Gamma World adventure The Cleansing War of Garik Blackhand.

The mutants call themselves Kreeg. They are no doubt the descendants of the Kreeg mutants in the Planet Earth pilot. They have the same Klingon head bumps and purple uniforms.

In the end, the PC's glimpsed the Kreeg's secret weapon:

A war wheel, much like the one that plagued Blackhawk.

Valley of the Bugbears

What the bugbears look like if they weren't invisible

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night. The party had passed through the so-called Black Pit into yet another strange, pocket world. This one was the mountain-ringed Valley of Vo., as they would soon discover.

They made their way to the crashed ship, along the way noting that they could see any birds in the odd fruit trees, despite hearing them. Near the great broken vessel, they were accosted by two voices--though the speakers were unseen, invisible. These were the gatherers Phanuvo and Gadrevo of the Vozerai. They filled the party in on the basics of their valley: invisible "bugbears" and the feud between their people and the Voyanki.

The party gets an audience with Learned One Hanivo. He isn't able to tell them much more than they've already heard: The dama-fruit makes all who eat it invisible. They know the ship carrying them crashed here long ago, but they do not know how long. They also don't know what world they originally came from. The one bit of useful information is that the Pyramidal Mountain on the otherside of the valley has a stairway inside that can take them out.

The group decides to talk with the Vozerai (who are more warlike and so, they reason, may know of some tips for fighting off the bugbears). Approaching the tail section, they encounter a young warrior who gets them a short audience with Shaman Vo Angra. The Vozerai are indeed more bellicose than the Voyanki, but equally ill-informed, and grudge-holding against their foes.

The party decides they'll have to just make a break for it. They make it most of the way across the valley, but then they encounter two bugbears. A vicious battle ensues, but both bears are killed. Dagmar suggests they skin them for fur for invisibility cloaks. A good idea, but the execution leaves them vulnerable to bugbear assault. A total of 3 approach at various points. One they drive off with some damage, and the other two they lure away with offal from the two carcasses. After harvesting one skin, they decide not to press their luck and make for the entrance to the mountain.

Wandering the Planet of the Apes

"THE DESERT" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Jarrett Crader as Aurelius
Justin Davis as Conrad "Rip" Ripper
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Morgan Farley as Ilpasa Elder
Gorilla Troopers
Ilpasa Tribesfolk

Synopsis: The astronauts and their chimpanzee friend set off across the desert in search of human tribes and discover hints of another enemy.

Commentary:
Leaving the Pax base at Carlsbad, the group was not completely certain of what particularly course south they should take. Eezaya had said his people lived along "the ancient border," but that was pretty nonspecific. They decided to return to their ship to survey from the air, even though they knew their fuel was low.

A roll on a slightly modified version of the X4: Master of the Desert Nomads random encounter table suggested an encounter with an enemy patrol: They found four gorilla troopers investigating the ship. As formulated a plan to deal with them, a strange mechanical sound and trail of black over the next hill got the gorilla's attention. They quickly rode off in pursuit.

Quickly, pre-packing the ship and taking off, the group wanted to see what the fuss was about. Flying low (burning more fuel) they saw a weird, smoke-belching contraption leveling an ape homestead little more than a mile from where they had landed. The gorillas rode toward it, but didn't get there until the thing had drove off into a wooded area in the direction of the Pecos River. The group debated whether to investigate that weirdness, but ultimately decided to fly on. The players that had been in the last session were concerned this was likely to be the mutants the Pax-droids had mentioned.

They fly out toward the west, looking for the Rio Grande. They find it and see what appear to be human settlements, based on the more primitive design. Landing at a flat part of the desert, Woodward doesn't get high enough on his piloting roll and winds up damaging one of the thrusters. It's probably repairable, though no one ever rolls to try and find out for certain.

Walking across the desert to the camp provokes another random encounter roll. This time a gorgon, for which a giant iguana is a good substitute.

LaCava reminds them all its herbivorous, and they give it wide berth.

The villagers are understandably wary, but hospitable (the flags on their flight suits help). There is a curious lack of warriors in their prime among them, which later they are told is due to the Mehi and their mutant allies.

The people call themselves the Patryot Nation and revere the ancient American flag and apparently the King James Bible. This particular tribe is the Ilpassa. Eezaya is of the more ape-hating Tehis.

The Ilpassa Elder they speak with is fatigued by their antics, but seems fooled by their passing off a spacesuit-clad Aurelius as their "grandfather."

In the end, the group isn't interested in the plight of the Ilpasa, and their fight with the mutants. They head out South along the river to find the Tehi.

Secrets of the Past on the Planet of the Apes

"THE SECRET OF PAX" 

Player Characters:
Jarrett Crader as Aurelius
Justin Davis as Conrad "Rip" Ripper
Billy Longino as Olsen Potter Graves
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward

Nonplayer Characters:
Mariette Hartley as Lyra-7
Alex Cord as Dylan-14, Dylan Hunt and Supervisor Dylan
Majel Barrett Prima
Percy Rodriguez Primus


Synopsis: The astronauts and their chimpanzee friend enter the cave complex of Pax. The people are as peaceful as their name, but soon it becomes apparent they are not what they appear.

Commentary:
The only shot fired in this episode was  a stun dart from a Paxer weapon (seem above) to keep an overwrought Aurelius from defecating on the floor. The PCs showed remarkable restraint.

Pax is the peaceful society built in a Carlsbad Caverns base by scientist after a nuclear conflict as seen in Genesis II. The Pax civilization thrived in 2133. Sometime between then and the arrival of our heroes in 31st Century, the Pax civilization moved to the north and left the original base as an experiential history exhibit using some sort of advanced artificial beings. They act out the discovery of Dylan Hunt in suspended animation. In moments of intense questioning, the automata revert to offering refreshments.

The PCs did discovered a map of more extensive subshuttle stations than they were aware of, but their were unable to get to the local station thanks to the automata.

In Pax's extensive library, they discover a pamphlet published in 1991 by Ape Management Publications titled How to Terminate Your Ape. This publication originally appeared in Adventure Comics's Planet of the Apes #19.

In the end, the astronauts leave the living museum much as they found it (thinking it might be a resource they can pillage later), ignore Aurelius suggestions they travel to the apes' Terminus City, and instead head south to the territory of the warring human tribes.